family age vs. chronological

One of the hot topics in adoption literature/theories is should you treat/expect from your child their "age" appropriate behaviours? The discussion usually centers on age; is it the chronological age of the child, or the family/emotional age of how long the child has been with you (i.e., for our little man he's 2 and 3/4 years old but only with us for nine months).

Another way of estimating some of this, is the general rule of thumb that for every three months a child spends in an orphanage that they are typically one month behind developmentally, but catch up by the time they hit double their age at adoption. In this case our little man who joined us at the age of two, was developmentally a 16 month old, that will catch up with peers by his fourth birthday.

There is no doubt my little man is behind. But he is not terribly behind, and he is catching up. When will he be "caught up", I don't know. Really it is the language that worries me the most. But there is an element of emotional growth that needs to occur too. I think there is merit to considering the disruption that adoption creates in a child's early life, particularly an international adoption where the sights, smells, sounds, everything changes.

I didn't come across the emotional/family age until DS2 had been with us about six months. Frankly, this theory helped me out. Of course he doesn't trust me as much as a normal almost 3 year old would, we don't have the history. Of course I don't trust him as much as I did DS1 at almost three, first we had greater history and second, DS1 could talk and tell me what was going on. But the concept explains why we still play baby trust games like peek-a-boo. And it explains why he loves playing these games. Our relationship is growing.

But the flip side to this is that we live in the real world. The place where all children are judge by the same standard. He is behind, and this is why we did the early intervention process. He is catching up, but did the malnutrition create any deficit in brain power (which I always wonder if this would matter given we only use something like 10% of our brains anyways). Will he always lack a bit of grace in his gate due to the early lack of balance because of the cleft related issues? Will he always feel behind, because he started with us late? And then there is the question of just how wide is the normal range?

My brother-in-law and family was over this last weekend. And they got me thinking about this. Their eldest was the most out of control toddler I had ever seen. He'd have these amazing temper tantrums that were loud, long and violent. He didn't speak until he was 4 years old, and didn't potty train until almost 5 years old. He's 15 now and the nicest, kindest, best behaved teenager I know. Has he caught up? Shouldn't he be a tough to handle age now? See you just never know.

When it comes to adoption, there are very strong opinions out there. But I find bits and pieces I like in generally most theories. Taking the theories hook, line and sinker is not my approach.
Kind of like the rule of thumb that you can double their height at age two to get an estimate of adulthood. Yeah, I think DS1 is bound for over 6 ft tall. But I think DS2 will break five feet!